Texas vs. No Child Left Behind

The state where it all began turns against the Cult of Educational Testing--and the interests behind it.

Seventeen months from now, every American student will be proficient in reading, and mathematics. On what basis do I make such a bold claim? It’s the law.

When the No Child Left Behind Legislation was signed by President George W. Bush 11 years ago, it required that by the end of 2013-2014 school year, “all students… will meet or exceed the State’s proficient level of academic achievement on the State assessments.”

If you find it absurd that we can make all our students above average with the stroke of the presidential pen, you’re not alone. The 100 percent proficiency goal of NCLB is now widely acknowledged to be a pipe dream. Recent trends indicate that schools are not even headed in the right direction; and, in much of the press, the 100 percent proficiency goal has become something of the punch line of a joke. Meanwhile, in a move that tacitly acknowledges the unworkability of the current law, the Department of Education is granting NCLB waivers to states which will make it easier for them to skirt the requirements.

So how did we get to the point where we confused legislating high standards with achieving high standards? To find the answer we have to go back in time. Even further back than January of 2002 when President Bush, flanked by a bipartisan group of legislators including Sen. Ted Kennedy, signed NCLB into law at a high school in Hamilton, Ohio. We have to return to the president’s home state of Texas.

Texas is where the failed policies of NCLB, along with an almost pathological obsession with testing, had their start.

And Texas, in a serendipitous turn of events, is poised to lead the way in reforming our nation’s approach to education. Diane Ravitch is a native Texan who served as assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and once championed many of the policies associated with NCLB before becoming one of the nation’s most outspoken critics of the law. Ravitch has recently written that “Texas brought No Child Left Behind to the nation” but that thanks to a recent revolt among parents and educators in the state, there is a new message: “Don’t Mess with Texas. The Revolution Begins Here.”

“Texas has to be the place where a stake is driven through the heart of the vampire,” Ravitch bluntly stated.

For the past two decades, excessive emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing and a one-size-fits-all focus on preparing all students for college came to dominate education policy in Texas and later, in Washington, D.C. with the passage of the Bush-Kennedy “No Child Left Behind” legislation. In addition, vocational education came to be neglected—even denigrated—in this massive push to make all students “college-ready.” Meanwhile, the principle of local control over education (which historically had been a deeply-held belief of Goldwater-Reagan Conservatives) was abandoned by Republican politicians in Texas and Washington, D.C., in their rush to be known as “educational reformers.”

The existing system relies heavily on how students score on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness—commonly referred to as the STAAR tests. Under the STAAR, students have to take up to 12 end-of-course exams during their time in high school; and the tests are supposed to account for 15 percent of the student’s final grade in the subject tested. However, implementation of the 15 percent grading requirement was delayed because of a public outcry.

Even longtime proponents of high-stakes, standardized testing are starting to question the wisdom of the current system of school accountability. As reported by Paul Burka in Texas Monthly, the former commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, Robert Scott, made this startling admission in a speech to the Texas Association of School Administrators: “I believe that testing is good for some things, but the system that we have created has become a perversion of its original intent, the intent to improve teaching and learning. The intent to improve teaching and learning has gone too far afield, and I look forward to reeling it back in.”

How did Texas education policy become so centralized at the state level?

H. Ross Perot began the process of having the state assume more control over public education in Texas with his well-intentioned effort in 1984 to improve standards of education by requiring students to pass a basic skills test to earn a diploma in Texas. The current, test-based accountability system really began to gain momentum during Gov. Ann Richards’s term in office in 1993 when, at the insistence of Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, the Texas legislature passed a school accountability plan which used an annual statewide test for all public school students in Texas (the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills or TAAS) as the primary measurement for school and student performance.

The new Texas accountability system neatly categorized schools into four easy-to-understand labels: “Exemplary,” “Recognized,” “Acceptable,” and “Low Performing” (which was later changed to “Academically Unacceptable”). These categories were based on passing rates on state exams and on dropout rates, but had little to do with measuring whether schools were preparing students for success in college or for meaningful employment.

But the labels played well from a public-relations standpoint for respective governors, beginning with Ann Richards, who could tout their support for “education reform.” Realtors often include in their report on homes for sale not only the name of the public schools serving that neighborhood, but also the state’s accountability ratings.

The principal architect of Texas’s accountability system was a lawyer from Dallas named Sandy Kress. The most thorough analysis of Kress’s role in pushing Texas’s education policy in the direction of a high-stakes testing system was one written by Mark Donald for the October 19, 2000 issue in the Dallas Observer right before George W. Bush’s election to the presidency. Entitled “The Resurrection of Sandy Kress,” Donald’s article described how Democrat Kress and Republican Bush came to be close allies in pushing Kress’s vision of “educational accountability.”

I had gotten to know Sandy Kress when he was the Dallas County Democratic Chairman, and I was an active Republican. Later, I was elected State Chairman of the Texas Republican Party in 1994, the year in which George W. Bush defeated Ann Richards in the race for governor of Texas. What I didn’t know at the time—but soon learned after the November election—was that Sandy Kress already had been a major advisor to George W. Bush on education issues for some period of time. I found that unusual since Sandy Kress was a liberal Democrat whose views on education and other domestic policy issues were very much at odds with the views of conservatives like myself who believed in local control of education and decentralization of governmental power, wherever possible. Moreover, Sandy had not exactly distinguished himself in the early 1990s when he chaired the board of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), during one of the most tumultuous periods in DISD history.

But I soon learned how influential Sandy Kress was with the incoming Republican Governor. Bush wanted to appoint Kress as his Education Commissioner, but the objections of conservatives like myself and others to his appointment resulted in Gov. Bush naming an educator Mike Moses to that position, instead. (Ironically, Mike Moses and Sandy Kress now find themselves on opposite sides of the school accountability fight in Texas.)

Nonetheless, Sandy Kress remained a key strategic advisor to the governor. He worked closely with Margaret LaMontagne (later Margaret Spellings), who was Gov. Bush’s education advisor, in expanding the statewide accountability system. During Bush’s tenure as Governor, the state consolidated power over education in the office of the Texas Education Agency and the Education Commissioner who was appointed by the Governor. Meaningful local control over education in Texas continued to erode as the accountability ratings system caused local school districts to focus more attention on the performance measurements put in place by the state particularly the testing system. Since that system did not include evaluation of the effectiveness of vocational education instruction, that area of preparation became de-emphasized in many Texas school districts.

During the Bush years, much of the opposition to the high-stakes testing was muted. Some parents and educators expressed frustration with the state’s performance measurements, but the system was new at the time. And, much of that opposition was dismissed as political. Or, when educators and members of the business community complained about the shortage of skilled workers and the lack of opportunities for career training at the high school level, those critics were accused of wanting to “lower standards.”

Fast forward 15 years, and the current system has lost most of its luster. Texas has worker shortages in the skilled trades, and improvements on state tests aren’t reflected in college entrance exams such as the SAT or ACT. In fact, average SAT reading scores in Texas have declined eight points in the last decade. A recent review by the National Academy of Sciences shows that high-stakes testing is not improving academic achievement. In fact, it may do more harm than good. While there is a debate about how to calculate dropout rates, just about everyone agrees that Texas has a serious problem with high school dropouts.

Many students get frustrated with the current one-size-fits-all test-based system with its emphasis on pushing everyone towards college; and they drop out because they don’t see education as relevant to them.

Texas policy-makers are coming to the realization that the high-stakes accountability system is fundamentally flawed. The accountability system assumes all students are headed to college, even though a mere 25 percent of high-school graduates attend a four-year university upon graduation. It also assumes that the state knows what is best for students being educated in such diverse settings such as Houston or a small, rural town.

We all are created equal, but we sure aren’t created the same. People have different strengths, abilities and interests. The state’s one-size-fits-all accountability system pressures school districts to spend an inordinate amount of time teaching to the test. As one teacher told me, it all becomes a numbers game to get the most students to pass the single test. Certain students in her class are going to pass it, and others likely will fail, so both groups tend to get neglected while most of the attention is focused on those students who are “on the bubble.”

High-achieving students, and their parents, feel that they are wasting their time on multiple-choice testing drills and practice tests rather than reading Shakespeare. And businesses are fed up with the fact that high schools are producing a lack of students prepared to enter skilled trades due to our neglect of vocational education at the high school level. That has resulted in a shortage of skilled workers and a greying workforce. For example, the average age of a welder is 55, a plumber 56, and a stone masonry craftsman 69.

Sandy Kress was very effective in the early years of this new state accountability system in getting business leaders behind his vision of making everyone “college-ready” by selling his vision as raising educational standards. He enlisted important business allies in advancing his agenda.

But the shape of the education debate is beginning to change. Frustration on the part of parents, employers, and educators with the current system has built up for years. Change is long overdue, and we need the courage to propose bold, meaningful solutions to these issues, rather than just tinkering around the edges. And, that is just what we are doing. A growing coalition of legislators, business and labor leaders, school board members, parents, other community leaders, and educators recognize that this is a serious issue and are working to fix it. The solution is simple, if not easy.

We need to allow for multiple pathways to a high school degree. One academic pathway would emphasize math and science. Another, the humanities and fine arts. A third would focus on career and technical education. All students would get the basics, but there would be greater flexibility than under the “one size fits all” existing system which pushes everyone towards a university degree.

This is a common sense approach to preparing young Texans to be college-ready or career-ready. It is time to end this “teaching to the test” system that isn’t working for either the kids interested in going on to a university or for those more oriented towards learning a skilled trade. Let’s replace it with one that focuses on real learning and opportunities for all.

In the past, when public frustration hit the boiling point, the testing establishment would simply roll out a new test with a new acronym and promise that the new test will fix everything. That is why, from 1991 to the present, the acronym of the Texas standardized test has gone from TAAS to TAKS and, now STAAR.

But that trick isn’t working this time. Supporters of the existing high-stakes system tried to address opposition by introducing the restrictive 4×4 curriculum in 2006 and unveiling the STAAR testing program in 2009. But far from mollifying the opposition, these changes made the system worse.

The 4×4 curriculum made it more difficult for students interested in career and technical education to take enough courses in their field of interest to get an industry-certified credential by the time they graduated from high school.

As the 2013 session of the Texas Legislature convenes, a major priority for many of us in this legislative session is to fix a broken system of education which isn’t working all that well for either those students who are college-oriented or for those students who want to get training, and an industry-certified credential, in a technical field.

But there are powerful interests arranged to protect the existing testing system. Pearson is the testing contractor and has an existing state contract that pays it nearly $500 million over a five-year period. Sandy Kress, a principal architect of our existing education policy in Texas and President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation, is not only a paid lobbyist for the testing contractor but is also determined to preserve the educational structure he worked so hard to put in place.

Just as Texas started this failed approach to educational accountability, the Texas Legislature has the opportunity to replace it with a common-sense system that focuses on real learning and opportunities for all.

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24 Responses to Texas vs. No Child Left Behind

It’s funny how so many so-called conservatives who went bonkers about Obamacare had no problem with the obviously unconstitutional NCLB. (How can Congress even pretend that education falls under the rubric of “interstate commerce”?)

If I’m getting this right, NCLB and high stakes testing is essentially a conservative attempting to perform liberal policy. The term is parody and it’s meant to be used in comedy, NOT policy.

To be true, though, this may help to show the real difference between what is thought to be Liberal ideals and what really are Liberal ideals. I could go for days stating examples, but I’ll stick to one: the idea of equal opportunity vs equal outcome.

Many believe that Liberals want the latter. Most don’t exactly because it creates items like NCLB. This…thing, is an attempt to create an equal outcome: Every student succeeding in a test and, thus, being ready for college. It ignores the concept of people being unable to reach that outcome, which is a central debate point on the Left (“Not everyone is cut out to be a business owner”). Even when you take the reality that schools do anything (from ‘teach the test’ anything to Atlanta Public Schools ANYTHING) to get everyone to pass it’s still a horrible system.

So what would be preferred if not a bloated, government centered homogenized program? One that’s more focused on helping students find and achieve their niche rather than simply dump a test in their face and threaten termination if they fail. Different tracks would be nice so that you don’t lock down a growing artist with calculus classes. Tests can be used similar to how programmers use Beta Tests: a way to tell what’s working, what’s working but may could use tweaking, and whether a new path or idea should be aimed for instead of the current path. It’s rare for a program to be just marked ‘FAIL’ and dumped and it’s acceptable to keep a program in testing to make sure it’s ready. School could be seen more in that light.

Of course, that may be going too Left. Perhaps something similar to college…or similar to what’s being proposed over in Texas. That it’s based on local/limited government plans isn’t an issue, just as long as everyone gets a proper chance to succeed, even if they don’t.

Btw, Sandy “Contractor’s dog” Kress is about as Liberal as Bush was a Conservative. If I may be bold, it makes sense that both really liked each other.

I like this flexible approach much more than the one-size-fits-all. My primary concern is what about the students who are like me. When I was in school, I wasn’t strong in any one area. Many of my friends are either science/math types or humanities/fine arts. I’m equally good in sciences and math as I am at analyzing literature or studying music. This gave me a lot of trouble deciding on a major in college, and continues to haunt me now that I have graduated and working my first “real” job.

Thanks for the story of the genesis of NCLB which I have always seen as an attack on public education. Vouchers are better because they channel public money into private corporations. It’s the Fascist business model known as rent seeking. But there is a more compelling reason to destroy public education. The Teachers Union.

All things public must be made private. Anything less is Communism. The Post Office and it’s Postal Employees Union is also marked for destruction. Set the schools up to fail then privatize them. Set the Post Office up to fail and then privatize it. Crush the unions and fill the corporate coffers. Up with profit – down with wages.

I am left-of-center, but enjoy well-researched, informative journalism. I do everything possible to avoid inundating myself with a single point of view. So my hat is off to The American Conservative.

As a NJ teacher, I agree with Pauken’s stance. This has nothing to do with hating federal oversight, though NCLB is an overreach. Education needs clear standards to define and encourage student achievement. These standards should be set by administration and boards of education.

The needs of every community are different. I work on the Jersey Shore, and the focus in education should be different from a middle-class suburb like Cherry Hill, a poor city like Newark or an affluent community in Bergen County.

Boards of education and administrations are elected and hired based on their knowledge of pedagogy and the community. They need the ability to specialize education, within reason.

Since that system did not include evaluation of the effectiveness of vocational education instruction, that area of preparation became de-emphasized in many Texas school districts.

Interesting how many auto-mechanics and other skilled labor folks are essentially self-taught now. It always amazed me how some people who couldn’t solve a simple algebraic problem nevertheless could tear down and rebuild a transmission, while others who could do differential equations in their sleep couldn’t change a spark plug.

My solution – general liberal arts and science/math for the first two years, and then more specialized options (either academic or trade oriented) the next two, perhaps with an option to get certified in certain trades (welder, plumber, electrician) shortly thereafter. I would also include some general business/economics as well, which is hardly taught at all at the high school level. You know, teach things that are actually useful and make people productive, maybe even self-sufficient at some level. Sounds scary.

NCLB is about as Liberal as it is Conservative, yet we have a so-called Liberal Democrat as one of the key creators of it and a so-called Conservative president spreading it to the entire nation.

If we really want to mark enemies, it’s not the Left or the Right. It’s those that seek to perverse the entire system for a goal neither side desires. It’s CEOs who are willing to ruin their entire company then jump away on their golden parachutes. It’s those that see thousands of our men and women willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in and see “PROFIT!” It’s ‘liberals’ that follow the Patriot Act because they know the left fears the right too much to rebel. It’s ‘conservatives’ that advocate the Patrot Act because they know the right will do anything the left hates.

Both of us have been taken for a ride on a lot of things. Education isn’t the only piece, but it’s probably one of the most disastrous.

IT has a similar format. Some colleges, a least when I was doing computer science in it, had horribly handled programming classes. Successful students basically ignored the classes and learned 100% on their own. The courses were just to get the diploma to prove what they already knew.

Reminds me of the homeschool model: if you can learn it on your own why DO you need others? A system that acknowledged that different skills need different learning programs and different students have different needs would be incredible.

If your school goes up fifteen API points for three years in a row, you are doing fine. But if your school goes up forty-five API points one year but zero points for the next two years, you are in trouble with Uncle Fed.

If you have, say, nine Filipino kids and four of them don’t do as well on the tests as they did last year, it’s a big deal to Uncle Fed.

I live in Texas now but went to high school in New England. It really surprised me since I have been here how little vocational secondary education there is in Texas compared to where I grew up, where it was very easy to graduate with some sort of certification or journeyman status in a tradeskill from a regional vocational/technical high school. It seems nonsensical to expect someone who wants to be a plumber or chef or auto mechanic to endure college prep classes when small business math, or payroll and tax accounting, or the physics of baking, or geometry and algebra tailored for tradeskills would be much more engaging and useful.

The article addresses the failure of students to pass standardized testing. But the article’s doesn’t explain how the failure to meet the standard is th fault of the objective.

The first problem with the argument is that the goal of instruction in every classroom in the United States is that every student pass each and every test. The express purpose of which is to ensure that each and every student pass the course. With the ultimate goal that each and every student advance to the next step in their education matriculation.

To enter into college, students take a standardized battery of tests: ACT and SAT for each student every question is the same and each question has a singularly correct answer. Up to that point the goal of every educator whose students take the exam is that they pass/succed so as to award them college entrance.

That is the model nationwide save for but a small number of educational variaents. The article fails to demonstrate to my satisfaction any flaw in the goal – every student in my class pass this test. The absurdity lies not in the expectation, but that the expectation was the means as opposed to the end.

Just how did this expectation prevent teachers from teaching the required information? Just what was it about this expectation that hindered student performance? Just how is 100% success rate any less than the expectation and goal of any instructor in any classroom? Was the material in the accorded tests kept a secret such that instructors were unaware of what to instruct students? Was the tests material beyond the expertise or knowledge of the instructor? Just how does teaching to an exam from an instructor creating their own exam based on what they taught in the classroom?

Given that these questions are not addressed in the article, I am left with no verification that what has occurred the Texas system is a reflection of NCLB failure, despite all the harangueing. Could this be a case of self fulfilling prophecy of those within the educational system who had questions about the policy, even before it was implemented. Who over exaggerated the daunt of the goals before tham and assumed that they could not be met as opposed to commitment to actually attain them?

The point of ‘one size fits all’ is to ensure a level ground by which students are tested. This does not require ‘one size fits all teaching.’ Teachers still create their own syllabi, design their own course structure, use their own teaching styles, skills, knowledge and creativity in their classrooms.

As to the measurements, the article does not demonstrate via any historical trend that drop-out rates suddenly jumped at the implementation of the NCLB. And if that were the case, just how is that the fault of standardized tests as opposed to multiple other variants: class size, teaching skills, family modeling about education and learning, impact of non-native speakers into the classroom, most likely a factor in Texas education.

Just what was/is so different from the NCLB goals and testing that teachers could not improve learning and teaching? Now there’a an academic revelation some students pass and some fail . . . in all of human teaching, that observation has never been noted.

As for the lack of skilled workers. I am familiar with career education programs and last I heard they were filled to te brim with students adult and teen who chose to leave or drop out of the traditional educational model. So the NCLB standards hindered those instrcutors from teaching electronics, plumbing, and construction . . . now maybe, I am just not familiar with the texas educational system — but, ” . . . something smells rotten in Denmark . . .”

Maybe the next time I engage a coaching session, I should set my success rate at less than 100% – seems silly. The point of any dream is not just its attainability — but that it pushes us to succeed to the highest possible goal. The argument by those in the article seems to be . . . it’s hard — dump it.

Yet the complainers and quitters are based in a state founded on a pipe dream — independence from Mexico in a country founded on a larger pipe dream: independence from one of the greatest powers in the known world at the time Great Britain. Hmm . . .

Public Education,today,is more about indoctrination then education. Public Education today doesn’t teach people how to think but instead what to think. With that said where in the Constitution does it say anything about education? Why do we have to have or need another layer of bureaucracy called the Federal Dept.of Education? Isn’t that carrying the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses too far? Doesn’t the 2nd Plank of the Communist Manifesto call for Public Education? Wouldn’t it stand to reason that if one supported Public Education then one would have to support Communism? Why is it that,especially in the inner cities but elsewhere as well,that many high school graduates can barely read their diplomas and are barely able to do the 4th grade level work of 1960. The only sensible answer to the above questions is to have a Constitutional Amendment on the Federal level that completely separates education from the State. This would entail the selling off of all public schools,including state universities,to entrepreneurs, Setting up charity schools(many of which could be run out of churches,especially in the inner cities) and encourage home schooling. All the money spent on public education should be given back to the taxpayers,especially at the state,county and local levels. There should be a banning of all state sponsored college loans and grants that only cause colleges to raise their tuition fees way above inflation and free market rates. In the end we might even have an educated public who can think for themselves and be self reliant instead of a nation of sheep.

I understand where the focus on testing is coming from–because there was a need for accountability and measurable results–but it’s not working.

I know no one likes to hear this, but property tax–at least in its current incarnation–is not the way to pay for schools. The rich kids, who are already advantaged, get more money and the poor kids get very little.

I agree we need better vocational education on a national level. Not all kids are meant to go to college, and they should still be able to make a good living.

Gee what a concept in the 21st century, a century that require a greater level of knowledge and the ability to handle higher technology, you seem to think that pretending we still live in a 17th century agrarian paradise (which never existed in the manner you likely believe) is the solution.

I was with you on removing the Feds from education, but you lost me when you decided that children should simply no longer be educated, or should be subjected to religious indoctrination as part of a new Constitutional mandate.

I’ll tell you what. I do not know where you live or whether you have kids, but you likely do not live in my community. Why don’t you just leave my community alone with you crazy Constitution rewriting schemes. I get it. You don;t want to pay property taxes, but destroy the current fabric of society by producing generation after generation of illiterate third world slave laborers is not the answer to your greed. Maybe you should just move to some place where anarchy reigns, and you can avoid paying taxes by arming yourself and creating a small army of mercenaries to protect you.

I never really understood why Texas was such a driving force in the American curiculum. It ranks near the bottom of the nation. This is the kind of ass-backwards logic I have come to expect from the USA though. Rarely are decisions made for the good of the nation. Now, if it is good for the pocketbook of donors, excellent!

You missed the point.
Not every student needs to be “college ready” nor should they be.
As a public high school teacher I see a class bias against tradespeople that permiates the public school system. Why go to college, come out $100,000 in debt and not find a job?
Don’t even get me started about how stupid it is to keep teen agers sitting at a desk for eight hours a day.

Mr. Pauken, thank you for the history lesson and practical advice. I hope you don’t mind, but I re-posted this to my blog at httt://lisamyers.org. I also shared it on FB and Twitter. It’s just too good for people to miss.

As the Director of a learning center that works with children with learning and attention disabilities, I can personally attest to the high levels of stress that the STAAR test brings upon our children.

For those kids who are struggling to read and write or do math, the STAAR test is a grueling exercise in failure. It does nothing to give the 20% of kids that struggle any effective learning skills.

Most people with Dyslexia and ADHD are extremely creative and gifted in the arts. The current testing system denies them the opportunity to thrive by focusing only on high stakes testing to prove skills and knowledge.

These families are suffering, and they are being cheated out of a good education. They are not looking for token gestures to make their kids feel better about themselves, rather they are asking for their kids to be given an opportunity to show their strengths in the areas that they are naturally good at.

I agree with Tom Pauken, and in the name of all my students that have suffered headaches, stomach aches, asthma attacks and panic attacks because of the STAAR test, I enthusiastically support his statement. The STAAR Test has to go!

As a nervously mother of 5th grade twins, boy and girl it disturbs me to know that my child missed a standard passing score by a couple of questions.. Will this really tell me if my child is or not capable of being promoted? Does it tell me that maybe my child guessed on several questions and by the grace of God got most correct to have a passing score, but is my child still ready to go onto the next grade level? The questions that I am asking what sense is this. Most involved parents will be able to determine their child’s strengths and weaknesses. This situation with the Standard Testing does not help the child. I believe ITBS testing is the most effective standardize testing for a child to determine where their weaknesses are. I think we have enough going on with our children today in the world with bullying and trying to fit in this society. Maybe once more things come to the media about children committing suicide due to anxiety about not passing Standard Test, then maybe you all will re-think the necessity. Life is very difficult as an adult just imagine how our young child must feel with all the stressful situations, some might just can not handle it. All I ask for us to decide in doing something different to allow children to achieve the required education for each grade level without all the stress.. The public, charter, and some private schools spend their entire school year sprucing for tests. LET CHILDREN BE KIDS!!!